The intent of sanctions are to get a nation/state to change their behaviors and cease what the sanctioning power sees as nefarious behavior. It would seem that the best way to get a revolution going would be to get the youth generations upset at their own government. The question then becomes who do these students see as the problem? The actions of their government that incur the sanctions or the actions of the sanctioning powers? Who do they blame?
Well, Iranian students very much fueled the Green Revolution four years ago. Their efforts came to naught, as the government crushed the uprising. My sense is that any education abroad is subversive in this context, and that this has longterm domestic consequences. State repression in Iran is fierce. The problem is that the West, I think, gives license to it, which the authorities run with.